White Gold Wielder Part 3

The Master winced: his cavernous eyes shot splinters of red at CaiL But almost at once he regained his deliberate poise. He glanced around the Giantship as if to a.s.sure himself that all was still well with it Then he turned over his command to Sevinhand, drew Cail and Covenant with him to the port rail.

The setting sun gave his visage a tinge of sacrificial glory.

Watching him. Covenant thought obscurely that the sun always set in the west*that a man who faced west would never see anything except decline, things going down, the last beauty before light and life went out.

After a moment, Honninscrave lifted his voice over the wet splashing of the shipside. "The Earth-Sight is not a thing which any Giant selects for himself. No choice is given. But we do not therefore seek to gainsay or eschew it. We believe *or have believed," he said with a touch of bitterness, ***that there is life as well as death in such mysteries. How then should there be any blame in what has happened?" Honninscrave spoke more to himself than to Covenant or CaiL "The (24 of 399) [1/19/03 11:38:40 PM]

The Path to Pain 35 Earth-Sight came upon Cable Seadreamer my brother, and the hurt of his vision was plain to all. But the content of that hurt he could not tell. Mayhap his muteness was made necessary by the vision itself. Mayhap for him no denial of death was possible which would not also have been a denial of life.

I know nothing of that. I know only that he could not speak his plight*and so he could not be saved. There is no blame for us in this." He spoke as though he believed what he was saying; but the loss knotted around his eyes contradicted him.

"His death places no burden upon us but the burden of hope." The sunset was fading from the west and from his face, translating his mien from crimson to the pallor of ashes.

"We must hope that in the end we will find means to vindicate his pa.s.sing. To vindicate," he repeated faintly, "and to comprehend." He did not look at his auditors. The dying of the light echoed out of his eyes. "I am grieved that I can conceive no hope."

He had earned the right to be left alone. But Covenant needed an answer. He and Poamfollower had talked about hope. Striving to keep his voice gentle in spite of his own stifE hurt, he asked, "Then why do you go on?"

For a long moment, Honninscrave remained still against the mounting dark as if he had not heard, could not be reached.

But at last he said simply, "I am 'a Giant The Master of Starfare's Gem, and sworn to the service of the First of the Search. That is preferable."

Preferable, Covenant thought with a mute pang. Mhoram might have said something like that. But Findail obviously did not believe it.

Yet Cail nodded as if Honninscrave's words were ones which even the extravagant Haruchai could accept. After all, Cail's people did not put much faith in hope. They staked themselves on success or failure*and accepted the outcome.

Covenant turned from the darkling sea, left the rail. He had no place among such people. He did not know what was preferable*and could not see enough success anywhere to make failure endurable. The decision he had made in Linden's name was just another kind of lie. Well, she had earned that pretense of conviction from him. But at some point any leper needed something more than discipline or even stubbornness to keep him alive. And he had too sorely falsified his relationship with her. He did not know what to do.36 Around Starfare's Gem, the Giants had begun to light lanterns against the night. They illuminated the great wheel, the stairs down from the wheeldeck, the doorways to the underdecks and the galley. They bung from the fore-and aftermasts like instances of bravado, both emphasizing and disregarding the gap where the midmast should have been. They were nothing more than small oil lamps under the vast heavens, and yet they made the Giantship beautiful on the face of the deep.

After a moment. Covenant found that he could bear to go (25 of 399) [1/19/03 11:38:40 PM]

looking for Linden.

But when he started forward from the wheeldeck, his attention was caught by Vain. The Demondim-sp.a.w.n stood beyond the direct reach of the lanterns, on the precise spot where bis feet had first touched stone after he had come aboard from m Isle of the One Tree; but his black silhouette was distinct against the fading horizon. As always, he remained blank to scrutiny, as though he knew that nothing could touch him.

Yet he had been touched. One iron heel of the old Staff of Law still clamped him where his wrist had been; but that hand dangled useless from the wooden limb which grew like a branch from his elbow. Covenant had no idea why Foamfollower had given him this product of the dark and histor- ically malefic ur-viles. But now he was sure that Linden bad been right*that no explanation which did not include the secret of the Demondim-sp.a.w.n was complete enough to be trusted. When he moved on past Vain, he knew more clearly why he wanted to find her.

He came upon her near the foremast, some distance down the deck from the prow where Findail stood confronting the future like a figurehead. With her were the First, Pitchwife.

and another Giant. As Covenant neared them, he recognized Mistweave, whose life Linden had saved at the risk of his own during his most recent venom-relapse. The three Giants greeted him with the same gentle caution Honninscrave and Sevinhand had evinced*the wariness of people who believed they were in the presence of a pain which transcended their own. But Linden seemed almost unconscious of his appearance-In the wan lantern-light, her face looked pallid, nearly haggard; and Covenant thought suddenly that she had not rested at all since before the quest had arrived at the Isle of the One Tree. The energy which had sustained her earlier had eroded away; her manner was febrile with exhaustion. For a 37 moment, he was so conscious of her nearness to collapse that he failed to notice the fact that she, too, was wearing her old clothea*the checked flannel shirt, tough jeans, and st.u.r.dy shoes in which she had first entered the Land, Though her choice was no different than his, the sight of it gave him an unexpected pang. Once again, be had been betrayed by his preterite instinct for hope. Unconsciously, he had dreamed that all the shocks and revelations of the past days would not alter her, not impell her to resume their former distance from each other. Fool! he snarled at himself.

He could not escape her percipience. Down in his cabin, she had read what he was going to do before he had known it himself.

The First greeted him in a tone made brusque by the stem- ness of her own emotions; but her words showed that she also was sensitive to his plight. "Thomas Covenant, I believe that you have chosen well." If anything, the losses of the past days and the darkness of the evening seemed to augment her iron beauty. She was a Swordmain, trained to give battle to the peril of the world. As she spoke, one hand gripped her sword's hilt as if the blade were a vital part of what she was saying.

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"I have named you Giantfriend, and I am proud that I did so. Pitchwife my husband is wont to say that it is the meaning of our lives to hope. But I know not how to measure such things. I know only that battle is better than surrender. It is not for me to judge your paths in this matter*yet am I gladdened that you have chosen a path of combat." In the way of a warrior, she was trying to comfort him.

Her attempt touched him*and frightened him as well, for it suggested that once again he had committed himself to more than he could gauge. But he was given no chance to reply. For once, Pitchwife seemed impatient with what his wife was saying. As soon as she finished, he interposed, "Aye, and Linden Avery also is well Chosen, as I have said. But in this she does not choose well. Giantfriend, she will not rest*' His exasperation was plain in his voice.

Linden grimaced. Covenant started to say, "Linden, you need*" But when she looked at him he stopped. Her gaze gathered up the darkness and held it against him.

"I don't have anywhere to go."

The stark bereavement of her answer went through him like a cry. ft: meant too much: that her former world had 38 been ruined for her by what she had learned; that like him she could not bear to return to her cabin*the cabin they had shared.

Somewhere in the distance, Pitchwife was saying, "To her have been offered the chambers of the Haruchai. But she replies that she fears to dream in such places. And Starfare's Gem holds no other private quarters."

Covenant understood that also without heeding it. Brinn had blamed her for Hergrom's death. And she had tried to kill Ceer. "Leave her alone," he said dully, as deaf to himself as to Pitchwife. "She'll rest when she's ready."

That was not what he wanted to say. He wanted to say, Forgive me. I don't know how to forgive myself. But the words were locked in his chest. They were impossible.

Because he had nothing else to offer her, he swallowed thickly and said, "You're right. My friends didn't expect me to be doomed. Foamfollower gave me Vain for a reason."

Even that affirmation was difficult for him; but he forced it out. "What happened to his arm?"

She went on staring darkness at him as if he were the linch- pin of her exhaustion. She sounded as misled as a sleepwalker as she responded, "Mistweave won't go away. He says he wants to take Cail's place."

Covenant peered at her, momentarily unable to comprehend. But then he remembered his own dismay when Brinn had insisted on serving him; and his heart twisted. "Linden,"

he demanded, forlorn and harsh in his inability to help her, "tell me about Vain's arm." If he had dared, he would have taken hold of her. If he had had the right.

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She shook her head; and lantern-light glanced like supplication out of her dry eyes. "I can't." She might have protested like a child. It hurts. "His arm's empty. When I close my eyes, it isn't even there. If you took all the life out of the One Tree *took it away so completely that the Tree never had any*

never had any meaning at all*it would look like that. If he was actually alive*if he wasn't just a thing the ur-viles made *he'd be in terrible pain."

Slowly, she turned away as though she could no longer support his presence. When she moved off down the deck with Mistweave walking, deferential and stubborn, behind her, he understood that she also did not know how to forgive.

39 He thought then that surely his loss and need had become too much for him, that surely he was about to break down.

But the First and Pitchwife were watching him with their concern poignant in their faces. They were his friends. And they needed him. Somehow, he held himself together.

Later, Mistweave sent word that Linden had found a place to sleep at last, huddled in a comer of the galley near the warmth of one of the great stoves. With that Covenant had to be content. Moving stiffly, he went back to his hammock and took the risk of nightmares. Dreams seemed to be the lesser danger.

But the next morning the wind was stronger.

It might have been a true sailors' wind*enough to shake the dromond out of its normal routine and make it stretch, not enough to pose any threat to the sea-craft of the crew. It kicked the crests of the waves into spume and spray, sent water crashing off the Giantship's granite prow, made the lines hum and the sails strain. The sides of the vessel moved so swiftly that their moire markings looked like flames crackling from the sea. In the rigging, some of the Giants laughed as they fisted the canvas from position to position, seeking the dromond's best stance for speed. If its miomast had not been lost, Starfare's Gem would have flown like exuberance before the blow.

However, the day was dull with clouds and felt unnaturally cold. A south wind should have been wanner than this. It came straight from the place where the Isle had gone down, and it was as chill as the cavern of the One Tree. Without the sun to light it, the sea had a gray and viscid hue. Though he wore a robe over his clothes. Covenant hunched his shoulders and could not stop shivering.

Seeking rea.s.surance, he went up to the wheeldeck, where Heft Galewrath commanded the dromond. But she greeted him with only a blunt nod. Her normally stolid demeanor held a kind of watchfulness that he had not seen in her before.

For the first time since they had met, she seemed accessible to misgiving. Rather than trouble her with his trepidations, he returned to the afterdeck and moved forward, looking for (28 of 399) [1/19/03 11:38:40 PM]

someone who could be more easily questioned.

It's not that cold, he told himself. It's Just wind. But still 40 the chill cut at him. No matter how he hugged the robe about him, the wind found its way to his skin.

Instinctively, he went to the galley, looking for warmth and Linden, He found her there, seated at one wall near the cheery bustle of the dromond's two cooks, a husband and wife aptly named Seasauce and Hearthcoal. They had spent so much of their lives working over the great stoves that their faces had become perpetually ruddy. They looked like images of each other as they bl.u.s.tered about their tasks, moving with a dis-ingenuous air of confusion which concealed the ease of their teamwork. When they went out on deck, heat overflowed from them; and in their constricted demesne they radiated like ovens. Yet Covenant's chill persisted.

Linden was awake, but still glazed with sleep. She had paid only a part of the debt of her weariness. Though she acknowledged Covenant, behind her eyes everything was masked in somnolence. He thought at once that he should not bother her with questions until she had rested more. But he was too cold for good intentions.

Hunkering down beside her, he asked, "What do you think of this wind?"

She yawned. "I think," she said distantly, "that Foul's in a hurry to get us back.

However, after another day's rest. Linden was able to look at the weather more percipiently. By then, Covenant had worn himself petulant with aimless anxiety. He felt repeatedly that he had lost the center of his life, that he could no longer hold himself from flying outward in all directions when the vertigo of his fear arose. Nothing had happened to suggest that the dromond was in danger: yet his inchoate conviction of peril remained. Snappishly, he asked Linden his question a second time.

But long sleep had brought her back to herself, and the gaze she turned toward him was capable of knowledge. She seemed to see without effort that his irritation was not directed at her.

She placed a brief touch on his forearm like a promise that she would not forsake him. Then she went out to look at the wind.

After a moment's a.s.sessment, she declared that this blow 41 was not unnatural or ill, not something which the Despiser had whipped up for his own ends. Instead, it was a reaction to the fundamental convulsion which had pulled down the Isle of the One Tree. By that violence, the balances of the weather had been disturbed, outraged.

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It was conceivable that Lord Foul had known this would happen. But she felt no evidence of his influence on the wind.

When Covenant relayed her verdict to Honninscrave, the Master shrugged, his thoughts hidden behind the b.u.t.tress of his brows. "No matter," he muttered as if he were not listening to himself. "Should it worsen. Starfare's Gem must run before it. Part-masted as we are, I will not hazard resistance to the wind's path. There is no need. At present, we are borne but a scant span from our true way.*'

That should have satisfied Covenant His experience of the sea was trivial compared to Honninscrave's. Yet the alarm in his guts refused to be eased. Like Galewrath, the Master conveyed an impression of concealed worry.

During the next two days, the wind became more serious.

Blowing with incessant vehemence a few poults west of north, it cut into the sea like the share of a plow, whined across the decks of the dromond like the ache of its own chill.

In spite of its speed, Starfare's Gem no longer appeared to be moving swiftly: the wind bore thewater itself northward, and what little bowwave the prow raised'was torn away at once.

Clouds hugged the world from horizon to horizon. The sails looked gray and brittle as they heaved the heavy stone along.

And that night the cold began in earnest When Covenant scrambled shivering out of his hammock the next morning, he found a sc.u.m of ice in the washbasin which Cail had set out for him. Faint patches of frost licked the moire-granite as if they had soaked in through the walls.

Pa.s.sing Vain on his way to the warmth of the galley, he saw that the Demondim-sp.a.w.n's black form was mottled with rime like leprosy.

Yet the Giants were busy about their tasks as always. Impervious to fire if not to pain, they were also proof against cold. Most of them labored in the rigging, fighting the frozen stiffness of the lines. For a moment while his eyes teared, Covenant saw them imprecisely and thought they were furling the sails. But then he saw clouds blowing off the canvas like White Gold Wielder 42.steam, and he realized that the Giants were beating the sails to prevent the frost on them from building into ice. Ice might have torn the canvas from the spars, crippling Starfare's Gem when the dromond's life depended upon its headway.

His breathing crusted in his beard as he let the wind thrust him forward. Without Cail's help, he would have been unable to wrestle open the galley door. Slivers of ice sprang from the cracks and vanished inward as the Haruchai broke the seal caused by the moisture of cooking. Riding a gust that swirled stiffly through the galley. Covenant jumped the storm-sill and nearly staggered at the concussion as the door slammed behind him.

"Stone and Sea!" Hearthcoal barked in red-faced and harm- (30 of 399) [1/19/03 11:38:40 PM]

less ire. "Are you fools, that you enter aft rather than forward in this gale?" With a dripping ladle, she gestured fiercely at the other seadoor. Behind her, Seasauce clanged shut his stove's firebox indignantly. But a moment later, all vexation forgotten, he handed Covenant a steaming flagon of diluted diamondraught, and Hearthcoal scooped out a bowl of broth for him from the immense stone pot she tended. Awkward with self-consciousness, he sat down beside Linden against one wall out of the way of the cooks and tried to draw some warmth back into his bones.

In the days that followed, he spent most of his time there, sharing with her the bearable clangor and heat of the galley.

In spite of his numbness, the cold was too fierce for him; and for her it was worse because her senses were so vulnerable to it. He made one more attempt to sleep in his cabin; but after that he accepted a pallet like hers in the galley. The wind mounted incrementally every day, and with it the air grew steadily more frigid. Starfare's Gem was being hurled like a Jen-id toward the ice-gnawed heart of the north. When Giants entered the galley seeking food or warmth, their clothing was stiff with gray rime which left puddles of slush on the floor as it melted. Ice clogged their beards and hair, and their eyes were haggard. Covenant made occasional forays out on deck to observe the state of the ship; but what he saw*the thick, dire sea, the lowering wrack, the frozen knurs of spume which were allowed to chew at the railings because the crew was too hard-pressed to clear them away*always drove him back to the galley with a gelid knot in his chest.

TJie Path to Pain 43 Once he went far enough forward to look at Findail. When he returned, his lips were raw with cold and curses. "That b.a.s.t.a.r.d doesn't even feel it," he muttered to no one in particular, although Pitchwife was there with Linden, Mistweave, the two cooks, and a few other Giants. "It goes right through him."

He could not explain his indignation. It simply seemed unjust that the Appointed should be untouched by the plight of the dromond.

But Linden was not looking at him: her attention was fixed on Pitchwife as if she wanted to ask him something important.

At first, however, she had no opportunity to interpose her question. Pitchwife was teasing Hearthcoal and Seasauce like a merry child and laughing at the concealed humor of their rebuffs. He had a Giant's tall spirit in his bent frame, and more than a Giant's capacity for mirth. His j.a.ping dissipated some of Covenant's acid mood.

At last Pitchwife wrung an involuntary laugh from the cooks; and with that he subsided near Covenant and Linden, the heat of the stoves gleaming on his forehead. Covenant was conscious of Linden's tautness as she mustered her inquiry. "Pitchwife, what're we getting into?"

The Giant looked at her with an air of surprise which might have been feigned. - "n.o.body wants to talk about it," she pursued. "I've asked Galewrath and Sevmhand, but all they say is that Starfare's Gem can go on like this indefinitely. Even Mistweave thinks (31 of 399) [1/19/03 11:38:40 PM]

he can serve me by keeping his mouth shut." Mistweave peered studiously at the ceiling, pretending he did not hear what was said. "So I'm asking you. You've never held anything back from me." Her voice conveyed a complex vibration of strain. "What're we getting into?"

Outside the galley, the wind made a peculiar keening sound as it swept through the anchorholes. Frost snapped in the cracks of the doors. Pitchwife did not want to meet her gaze; but she held him. By degrees, his good cheer sloughed away; and the contrast made him appear older, eroded by an unuttered fear. For no clear reason, Covenant was reminded of a story Linden had told him in the days before the quest had reached Elemesnedene*the story of the role Pitchwife had played in the death of the First's father. He looked now like a roan who had too many memories.44 "Ah, Chosen," he sighed, "it is my apprehension that we have been snared by the Dolewind which leads to the Soulbiter."

The Soulbiter.

Pitchwife called it an imprecise sea, not only because every ship that found it did so in a different part of the world, but also because every ship that won free of it again told a different tale. Some vessels met gales and reefs in the south; others, stifling calms in the east; still others, rank and impenetrable beds of sarga.s.so in the west. In spite of this, however, the Soulbiter was known for what it was; for no craft or crew ever came back from it unscathed. And each of those ships had been driven there by a Dolewind that blew too long without let or variation.

Linden argued for a while, vexed by the conflicting vague- ness and certainty of Pitchwife's explanations. But Covenant paid no heed to either of them. He had a name now for his chill anxiety, and the knowledge gave him a queer comfort.

The Soulbiter. It was not Lord Foul's doing. Neither could it be avoided. And the outcome of that sea might make all other fears unnecessary. Very well. The galley was too warm; but outside cried and groaned a cold which only Giants could endure for any length of time. Eventually, even the din of the cooks became soothing to him, and he pa.s.sed out of trepidation into a kind of waking somnolence*a stupefied inner silence like an echo of the emptiness which the Elohim had imposed upon him in Elemesnedene.

That silence comprised the only safety he had known in this world. It was a leper's answer to despair, a state of detachment and pa.s.sivity made complete by the deadness of every nerve which should have conveyed import. The Elohim had not invented it: they had simply incarnated in him the special nature of his doom. To feel nothing and die.

Linden had once redeemed him from that fate. But now he was beaten. He made decisions, not because he believed in (32 of 399) [1/19/03 11:38:40 PM]

them, but because they were expected of him. He did not have the heart to face the Soulbiter.

In the days that followed, he went through the ordinary motions of being alive. He drank enough diamondraught to account for his mute distance to the people who watched him.

He slept in the galley, took brief walks, acknowledged greet- 45 ings and conversations like a living man. But inwardly he was becoming untouchable. After years of discipline and defiance, of stubborn argument against the seduction of his illness, he gave the effort up.

And still Starfare's Gem plowed a straight furrow across the gray and gravid sea while the wind blew arctic outrage.

Except for a few worn paths here and there, the decks were now clenched with ice, overgrown like an old ruin. Its sheer weight was enough to make the Giants nervous; but they could not spare time or strength to clear the crust away. There was too much water in the wind: the blow sheared too much spray off the battered waves. And that damp collected in the sails faster than it could be beaten clear. At intervals, one stretch of canvas or another became too heavy to hold. The wind rent it out of its shrouds. A hail of ice-slivers swept the decks; tattered sc.r.a.ps of sail were left flapping like broken hands from the spars. Then the Giants were forced to clew new canvas up the yards. Bereft of its midmast, the granite dromond needed all its sails or none.

Day after day, the shrill whine of the rigging and the groans of the stone became louder, more distressed. The sea looked like fluid ice, and Starfare's Gem was dragged forward against ever-increasing resistance. Yet the Giantship was stubborn. Its masts flexed and shivered, but did not shatter. Grinding its teeth against the gale, Starfare's Gem endured.

When the change came, it took everyone by surprise. Rest had restored the combative smolder to Linden's eyes, and she had been fretting for days against the maddening pressure of the blast and the constriction of the galley; but even she did not see what was coming. And the Giants had no warning at all.

At one moment, Starfare's Gem was riding the howl of the wind through the embittered heart of a cloud-dark night. At the next, the dromond pitched forward like a destrier with locked forelegs; and the gale was gone. The suddenness of the silence staggered the vessel like a detonation. There was no sound except the faint clink and crash of ice falling from the slack sails. Linden Jerked her percipience from side to side, probing the ship. In astonishment, she muttered, "We've stopped. Just like that"

For an instant, no one moved. Then Mistweave strode to me forward door, kicked it out of its frost. Cold as pure as 46 absolute winter came flowing inward; but it had no wind behind it. The air across the Giantship was still.

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Shouts sprang along the decks. In spite of his inward silence, Covenant followed Mistweave and Linden out into the night.

The clouds were gone: the dark was as clear and sharp as a knife-edge. Spots of light marked out the Giantship as the crew lit more lanterns. Near the eastern horizon stood the moon, yellow and doleful. It was nearly full, but appeared to shed no illumination, cast no reflection onto the black and secret face of the water. The stars littered the sky in every direction, all their portents lost. Linden muttered to herself, "What in h.e.l.l*?" But she seemed unable to complete the question.